A decrepit grid
16th October 2024
The national power grid is a vast network of electrical transmission lines that link power stations to end-use customers across the country. The country’s power firms generate and supply between 3.5GW and 5.5GW of electricity to over 200 million citizens. The total number of grid collapses in 2024 has equalled that in the entire year 2019, which was ten times. In 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, the frequency was 4, 2, 4 and 3, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The grid also failed 12 times in 2018, 15 times in 2017, 22 times in 2016, 6 times in 2015, 9 times in 2014 and 22 times in 2013. The story of repeated grid failures has left millions of Nigerians grappling with prolonged power outages, exacerbating the challenges businesses and households face.
Experts blame the country’s aged power plants for the country’s repeated national grid collapses. NERC has said that many of the power plants are as old as 21 years, adding that age and challenges with the maintenance of generating units are the biggest driving factors behind the mechanical power outages in Nigeria.
Other contributory factors to the challenges in the industry include a lack of liquidity at the upstream segment of the NESI, caused by the gross underpayment of generation companies’ invoices by distribution companies (market shortfall) and the government (unpaid subsidy costs).